Crime United Healthcare CEO assassinated in NYC

[PhitePhan]

You're arguing for a sin tax on food that poor people eat because it's cheap, not because it's bad for them. So, agree to disagree on that. There is no equivalence between food and addictive substances.

I don't agree that everyone has easy access to fresh food in as much as access includes having the money, having the time (both to shop and to prepare the meal), having a place to store it, and having room to stock up when it's cheap. Consequently, a lot of poor people buy some of the more nutritious foods when they're on sale. But what do they do between sales? You're looking at a lot of bread and hot dogs.

There are better ways to reshape (lol) people's diets without raising their cost of living. Here's one that just occurred to me now: how about a subscription service for low-income people to deliver baskets of fresh vegetables or the like paid for by savings in healthcare costs? If it were up to me the government would likewise put the food banks out of business.

There is PLENTY of equivalence between food and addictive substances.

Experts Agree: Sugar Might Be as Addictive as Cocaine​

Is Sugar an Addictive Drug?

Sugar affects our brain pathways just like addictive drugs, and most of us don’t realize how much we’re eating. Learn more.

www.healthline.com

 

[Andy Capp]

There is PLENTY of equivalence between food and addictive substances.

Experts Agree: Sugar Might Be as Addictive as Cocaine​

Is Sugar an Addictive Drug?

Sugar affects our brain pathways just like addictive drugs, and most of us don’t realize how much we’re eating. Learn more.

www.healthline.com

In the context of how they should be taxed, no, there isn't. In the context of how some foods should be regulated, that may be a different story, but that was not the subject of the post to which I responded. Food that poor people rely on to fill their stomachs should not be taxed like cigarettes and booze.

 

[Andy Capp]

I'd say Mangione and his actions have about a 90% approval rate on the left and 80% on the right.

And there's always the hope for a rise in class consciousness but expect the right to viciously fight it. So get ready for them to trot out their tried and true workhorse: cultural issues. They'll bring up how the illegals would also receive healthcare, how this or that tranny will get their treatment paid for, or how some black activist has tweeted something like "health justice is racial justice."

And just like that, support for universal healthcare drops down to 10% among conservatives.

I'd say you're making up the data in that first sentence. But then, I'd be hard pressed to express approval for a murder in any event.

I don't think rich conservatives have ever needed an excuse to make healthcare harder to get for poor people while they line their pockets.

 

[Blayt7hh]

Definitely.

The documentary cited a survey that was done asking physicians how many would be in favor of increasing the number of licenses so that more people would receive care for cheaper... but also cut down their salaries. It was about 50-50.

I interpreted that as half of doctors being "in it for the money" and half in it to help people.

Maybe but it’s not a completely fair assessment. You have to invest so much of your life into becoming a doctor and it’s such a huge financial risk that I can’t see why they want to get paid. You’re talking like an average of 12 years of school and training before they’re board certified specialists and can start paying off their student loans. It’s a very hard path to take and it deserves rewarding.

There does need to be changes made and we do need to produce more doctors. I know the whole residency system we have is kind of a scam for cheap labor too. But I’m not knowledgeable enough to say where exactly changes need to happen. Doctor salaries are only a piece of what makes our healthcare bills so astronomical anyways

 

[Fox by the Sea]

from italy

 

[evansusmc2]

Late to the party on this one. Glad they caught this Luigi guy. His family finally came out and admitted his mental illness and past problems.

Either way, THIS is not how things should be solved. Gunning someone down from the back is just cowardly and criminal.

 

[Poon Goon]

Gunning someone down from the back is just cowardly and criminal.

I think if he shot him from the front that would have been illegal too.

 

[evansusmc2]

I think if he shot him from the front that would have been illegal too.

eh, I guess maybe I should have specified the obvious.

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

This is rock solid reasoning. Everything is clearly a business and the only God we should serve is "efficiency" as measured by corporate profit margins.

Also, there is clearly no basis of comparison that would debase your take on this. It's not like there are dozens of industrialized countries with high standards of living, education and life expectancy, and low levels of crime and income disparity. Such a country can't exist! Paying huge sums to already rich, greedy corporate psychopaths in exchange for abysmal services instead of paying taxes is freedom!

the sheer amount of work the USPS is able to get done on their meager budget is unfathomable and largely unmatched anywhere else in the country.

 

[Sinister]

Maybe but it’s not a completely fair assessment. You have to invest so much of your life into becoming a doctor and it’s such a huge financial risk that I can’t see why they want to get paid. You’re talking like an average of 12 years of school and training before they’re board certified specialists and can start paying off their student loans. It’s a very hard path to take and it deserves rewarding.

There does need to be changes made and we do need to produce more doctors. I know the whole residency system we have is kind of a scam for cheap labor too. But I’m not knowledgeable enough to say where exactly changes need to happen. Doctor salaries are only a piece of what makes our healthcare bills so astronomical anyways

This is why his post reminded me of Ebenezer. The idea being that in order to elevate status, you have to have this massive undertaking of time and energy that can ruin relationships. Having relationships isn't always easy for Doctors. Now I've seen some predatory Doctors in my day where I'm not at all sure how they even got through medical school, but the ones that actually want to help people also seem like unwilling cogs in a f*cked up system. It's easy to blame them because they directly interact with the public more. Being a Doctor also has the stigma of "if you do this, you're a success" socially.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

I'd say you're making up the data in that first sentence. But then, I'd be hard pressed to express approval for a murder in any event.

I don't think rich conservatives have ever needed an excuse to make healthcare harder to get for poor people while they line their pockets.

Yeah, the "approval" part kinda ranges between "He's a hero and needs an award" to "Murder is bad, he should be punished... but not terribly harshly because the frustration is understandable."

Personally, I'm closer to the latter side. Give him 15 years and parole him after 8 years if he shows remorse and behaves well while locked up.

 

[JBJisGOAT14]

Yeah, the "approval" part kinda ranges between "He's a hero and needs an award" to "Murder is bad, he should be punished... but not terribly harshly because the frustration is understandable."

Personally, I'm closer to the latter side. Give him 15 years and parole him after 8 years if he shows remorse and behaves well while locked up.

Jury finds him Innocent and gives him Thompsons bonus for 2024.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Maybe but it’s not a completely fair assessment. You have to invest so much of your life into becoming a doctor and it’s such a huge financial risk that I can’t see why they want to get paid. You’re talking like an average of 12 years of school and training before they’re board certified specialists and can start paying off their student loans. It’s a very hard path to take and it deserves rewarding.

There does need to be changes made and we do need to produce more doctors. I know the whole residency system we have is kind of a scam for cheap labor too. But I’m not knowledgeable enough to say where exactly changes need to happen. Doctor salaries are only a piece of what makes our healthcare bills so astronomical anyways

I'm not saying they should do it for free or that they should be paid like your average office worker, but a lot of those numbers are through the roof.

You could cut all those salaries in half and they'd still be doing better than 95% of all professionals. I want my surgeon to be highly skilled but he's not going to struggle or starve if he makes $300k a year instead of $600k. And he'd be better rested as well.

And physician salaries kinda set the tone for all the other positions below them. I know for a fact that lot of nurse practicioners (people with a Master's in nursing) make $250-300k, and RNs well into the low 100s straight out of college. All of that is gonna add up.

Insurance companies definitely benefit the most, but lots of other occupations do as well.

 

[Fox by the Sea]

this Fat Luigi guy was significantly cooler when not actually talking.
when i heard that line about the "lived experience" i thought to myself, jesus, this could only come from a very specific american educational space. nobody that had a job in their lives talks like that.

 

[Libero cane v2]

Yes, that is what you're asking for. If they're operating on a 3% profit margin WITH denials, then they obviously can't remove them without running at a negative, so insurance premiums would have to go up considerably just to break even.

And the answer is that every other first world country can't figure it out. I've posted the numbers from other countries more than 5 times ITT, and they're horrific. Every single country in Europe has lower cancer survival rates, and the number of deaths from people caused by wait times are many multiples higher than the US could dream of having from any lack of coverage or insurance companies not reimbursing extra labwork. And it's nowhere close to "free" either, they all tax the shit out of everyone for inferior medical care. An employee's $1200/year contribution for insurance coverage is much cheaper than Germany taxing you 42% on income over $68k.

The US spends more money on health care than almost any other nation an me has relatively poor overall outcomes.

In terms of mortality due to preventable causes, America is barely ahead of Romania, and behind Colombia.

Mortality rates from preventable causes OECD countries 2021 | Statista

In 2021, the average mortality rate across OECD countries from preventable causes stood at 158 deaths per 100,000 population.

www.statista.com

 

[Andy Capp]

Maybe but it’s not a completely fair assessment. You have to invest so much of your life into becoming a doctor and it’s such a huge financial risk that I can’t see why they want to get paid. You’re talking like an average of 12 years of school and training before they’re board certified specialists and can start paying off their student loans. It’s a very hard path to take and it deserves rewarding.

There does need to be changes made and we do need to produce more doctors. I know the whole residency system we have is kind of a scam for cheap labor too. But I’m not knowledgeable enough to say where exactly changes need to happen. Doctor salaries are only a piece of what makes our healthcare bills so astronomical anyways

The for profit model is, and always will be as long as it is employed, the primary cause of the issue of hospitals over-charging and insurers being blood-thirsty soul-suckers. They will always put profit ahead of the people they serve because that's the only reason they're in business--to make as much money as possible.

The one way I see for-profit healthcare working is if you tax the people who can afford to pay for it heavily and use the revenue to pay for publicly-funded healthcare, including ensuring high pay rates for healthcare workers to increase demand for those jobs.

With higher staffing rates and further investments in equipment there would be savings realised in reducing wait times for diagnostic tests which would catch issues before they become life-altering/threatening. Nowadays, there are a very large number of illnesses, especially cancers, which can be cured completely if caught early enough but which will be almost futile to treat if caught too late.

tl;dr healthcare costs are so astronomical because of the for-profit system and that's pretty much it.

 

[Andy Capp]

Too lazy to look for it but 10+ years ago, I saw a great Frontline documentary on the movement to loosen physician licensing restriction.

Basically, medical boards purposely keep the number of physicians low so that there's always a shortage of them. This results in the active physicians that do have licenses working a ton of hours... but also making absurd amounts of money because there are so few of them.

They contrasted this with British doctors who aren't paid nearly as well (still comfortably upper-middle class, though) but who are able to provide cheaper services because there's more of them.

Some of these numbers are just silly

This is perfectly in keeping with my post above.

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

The for profit model is, and always will be as long as it is employed, the primary cause of the issue of hospitals over-charging and insurers being blood-thirsty soul-suckers. They will always put profit ahead of the people they serve because that's the only reason they're in business--to make as much money as possible.

this is basically all anyone needs to know.

 

[JBJisGOAT14]

this Fat Luigi guy was significantly cooler when not actually talking.
when i heard that line about the "lived experience" i thought to myself, jesus, this could only come from a very specific american educational space. nobody that had a job in their lives talks like that.

Cope harder buddy.

 

[nostradumbass]

The US spends more money on health care than almost any other nation an me has relatively poor overall outcomes.

In terms of mortality due to preventable causes, America is barely ahead of Romania, and behind Colombia.

Mortality rates from preventable causes OECD countries 2021 | Statista

In 2021, the average mortality rate across OECD countries from preventable causes stood at 158 deaths per 100,000 population.

www.statista.com

The country with the highest income that is also the most obese and does the most drugs spends the most on healthcare?

Did you happen to click your own link to what qualifies as "preventable mortality"? 70% of it was drugs and alcohol, obesity, car accidents and "covid", not medical care. "Preventable" means by the patient, not the doctor.

And you are aware that a massively disproportionate number of those are people who are on public healthcare, right? Not exactly a great argument to make for forcing everybody else onto public heathcare too.

Main causes of preventable mortality across OECD countries 2021 | Statista

In 2021, among the 2.1 million premature deaths in OECD countries, 22 percent were due to infectious diseases (including COVID-19), while cancer accounted for another 21 percent of all preventable deaths.

www.statista.com